Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Gifts of the Spirit

Hey Mom!

How is everything going this week?
Everything has been going well here. Elder Bonzo and I are getting along just
fine and our lessons are starting to go really good. I can't remember if I said
it in one of my letters, but one of our practice investigators, Karl, has
committed to baptism. One of our other investigators, Frau Zeidler, hasn't
committed to baptism yet, but we had a great lesson yesterday about the Holy
Ghost and the spirit was incredibly strong. She said if she came to know that
these things were true then she might get baptized, so hopefully we can keep
having good experiences there.

The new missionaries here are pretty cool. There
are 37, and half of them are going to Frankfurt. One of them is from Vegas named
Elder Jex. He's pretty cool. I can tell most of the missionaries are really
intimidated by us and how well we speak German. A lot of elders that I say even
just "Wie geht's?" to don't respond just because I think they are nervous. A few
of them have pretty good German though. One new sister has had 6 years of
German, so she's got a pretty big head start on everyone. When
Matt H. gets here the MTC is going to be extremely crowded
on the day that he comes in. I think right now we have between 2200-2500
missionaries here, and when he gets here it will be around 2900.

Yesterday I had an interview with Bruder
Luna and he told me what a great missionary I'm becoming, and I know that it's
not really anything I'm doing. I'm just trying to be obedient and learn and the
Lord is doing the rest. I feel kind of like Ammon because these Gifts of the
Spirit that I get to enjoy here are just that: gifts, and they come through
God's power and love. Anyway, yesterday we got a letter from President Schwartz
with a checklist of things to do before we get to Frankfurt and what the
schedule is going to be once we get there. We have a couple hours to get
oriented and get our bikes and such, and then we go out in downtown Frankfurt
and street preach. It's kind of intimidating to think that in two weeks I'll be on
the street contacting random people. I hope I get a good trainer once I get
there.

On Sunday, we went to our fireside, and instead of someone giving a talk,
a member of the Seventy portrayed Willard Richards on the stage and told all the
stories of Joseph Smith from his point of view. It was really amazing, and at
the end, we sang "Praise to the Man" and during the first verse everyone started
to stand up and by the end of the first verse, everyone was standing and singing
with a lot of power. It was a crazy experience, and it was a real testimony to
the Prophet, Joseph Smith.

Gym time has been a ton of fun lately. A few days
ago, I played soccer with a bunch of elders in my zone, and a lot of them are
really good, and I scored two goals, which was really sweet. Yesterday we played
softball, and my first two at-bats I hit homers, and that was also really fun. I
am going to miss gym time once I leave the MTC, but hopefully since I'll be in
Germany, I can play some soccer more so than basketball. I'm still no good at
that.

In terms
of the language, we have learned pretty much all of the basic grammar principles
now. The last thing we worked on, and something that I have been trying really
hard to get down, is adjective endings. In English, because there are no genders
for words, you don't really have to worry about changing adjectives at all. Zum
Beispiel, if you call a book, a church, or a man red, it would always just be
"red." In German, however, a book is neuter, a church is feminine, and a man is
masculine, so it would be ein rotes Buch, ein rote Kirche, oder ein roter Mann.
And then all of those would change depending on the case of the noun. Also, if
the word has a gender spoiler, like der, die, or das (der words), the adjectives
that follow it take a weak ending. The whole concept of it is that you have to
declare the gender of a word as early as you can. Anyway, that's everything
that is going on here. Everything else is just the same, except for the fact
that Germany is so close to being here. Ich hoffe, dass Sie eine gute Woche
haben, und, dass Sie viele Segnungen haben werden. Ich liebe dich,
aufwiedersehen (auf-wieder-sehen literally means on-again-see, just thought that
was interesting)!